The Storm Giants

by Pearce Hansen

  Everett had always been there for her, hanging around like a big paranoid attack dog frantic for his pack’s safety. Now his past history had come calling. He thought it safer to take the fight away from home. His leaving was the only move they had.

  Everett finished his preparations and walked out the door, his mind racing too hard for goodbye even if farewells had been his way.

  Brother Rick sat next to the front door. That fat barreled DeLisle rifle was cradled in his lap, the one Everett brought to the house earlier with no explanation as to how he got it. She didn’t want to know.

  “Everyone’s got the word,” Rick said. “Fervus already caught a few trying to sneak around the back road. Don’t worry, they won’t trouble nobody again.”

  “How’d you know they were involved?” Everett asked.

  “Fuck ‘em in the neck. They were strangers. Even if they weren’t involved, they probably did something to somebody sometime. To hell with being discrete. Scorched earth is thorough enough for this neck of the woods.” Rick returned his gaze to Everett. “You told her what’s going on?”

  Everett looked back at Rick like he was a house pet that just took a dump in the middle of the living room carpet.

  “You play it too close to the vest, brother in law,” Rick said. “Kerri’s not flimsy, she needs to know and it’s not my place to tell her.” Rick’s tone tried to be firm, but mollification drenched his voice.

  “Not his place,” Everett said, but then knuckled under to her brother for the first time in Kerri’s memory.

  Everett turned to her and said, “Let’s go inside for a sec.”

  And then Everett told her something from his childhood. He told her about Doctor Dauffenbach. As he spoke, Kerri found his face growing younger and younger in her mind, taking her along as a fly on the wall.

  Chapter 20 : Far, Far Away

  Of course young Everett was nervous his first visit to Doctor Dauffenbach. Most people are when they go to a new dentist. That was no shame for a 14 year old boy.

  Everett climbed the marble steps to Dr. D’s office. Birds sang, a plane buzzed overhead. Not a cloud in the sky as he crossed the threshold into that cool dim interior.

  In the gloom of the waiting room, the receptionist posed behind her desk like a work of art in a museum. A cold, aristocratic blonde wearing a subtle dash of what he later learned was Chanel No. 5. As a horny young boy Everett saw she was beautiful, but she repelled as much as she attracted him even then. She told Everett that Dr. Dauffenbach was ready for him, and ushered him into the back.

  Dr. Dauffenbach stood next to his dental chair, an old man way past sixty, or even seventy. His white coat was so stiffly starched that it could have been some sort of corset forcing him to stand erect. His head was close cropped on the sides but topped with silver hair slicked straight back, above a round red glistening face.

  He looked Everett up and down with piercing blue eyes and grinned, displaying more teeth than any human being had a right to possess.

  "So,” he boomed in a voice too jovial for the circumstances, “I understand you like the candy too much, ja? Well, sit down and we will make everything good."

  Dr. D shut the room’s door and locked it as Everett climbed aboard the over sized chair. Doctor D wandered around the room gathering various pieces of equipment, the nameless steel implements clinking together in his hand as he hummed a light hearted tune full of summer and cheer.

  When all was in order, he came to stand next to Everett. His belly rubbed against Everett’s arm as he grasped a controller dangling from a cord.

  "First the lights.” With a click, the overhead dimmed to blackness as the working light came on behind Doctor D’s shoulder, transforming his red face into a harsh montage of light and shadow.

  “Now we make ourselves comfortable." With a penetrating hum the chair leaned back, adjusting itself so Everett was in the position of a helpless infant with head lower than feet, looking up at Doctor D’s shadowed face.

  Doctor D said, “You know, dental work is quite costly. The most expensive part is the anesthetic – the Novocain. If you would be willing to let me work without Novocain, it would save your parents quite a bit of money. You do want to save your parents’ money, don't you?"

  "All right,” Everett said.

  Doctor Dauffenbach picked up his drill and triggered it. The drill spun with an alarming whir. "This will hurt. If the pain should prove too great for you to bear, you will raise your right arm and I will stop. Yes?"

  "All right,” Young Everett repeated, staring at the drill in dawning realization.

  "Good. Open wide." He hunched over Everett, blocking out the light as Everett stretched his mouth open as far as he could.

  Everett heard the scream of the drill for a moment before it was in his mouth. The drill touched the target tooth and he felt the charred bits of powdered crown flying away, smelled and tasted the rot of the cavity. As the drill dug into the defenseless pulp, it was as if a white hot needle pierced Everett to his very core.

  His entire mouth tried to cringe away from the invader to no avail, and his body jolted into stiffness like a soldier at attention. His right arm shot straight toward the ceiling in a trembling ram rod salute.

  Doctor D stopped and withdrew the drill. "That could not have hurt so soon. Are you a sissy boy? Are you weak?"

  "No,” Everett said. “I’m not weak.”

  They resumed the work. Everett’s nerves twanged like guitar strings with every change in pressure or angle of Doctor D’s virtuoso drill. Doctor D hummed and muttered under his breath as the pain brought a sheen of sweat to Everett’s face.

  At one point Everett looked up at his tormentor. Dr. D was sweating as well, and his eyes shone. Almost Everett understood – but he was too young, too young.

  Everett’s hands clutched the unyielding armrests and his shoulders rose toward his ears. It was all he could do not to squirm out of his seat.

  But as the drilling progressed the pain seemed to move, to withdraw from him. He wasn’t numb. He was hypersensitive as ever. Rather, the pain was still there but . . . separate from him. He tried willing it further away and his efforts worked. By the time the drilling was done, there was no longer any pain to be felt.

  The filling material squeaked against the enamel as Doctor D packed Everett’s wounded tooth.

  Dr. Dauffenbach raised the chair and brought his large hairless hands together in a meaty, business like clap. "So. This will be our little secret, ah? Your parents pay less each time we do it this way – so long as you say nothing."

  For the third time that morning, all Everett could say was "All right."

  His clothes were drenched in sweat, and trembling happened as he swung his legs off the chair. He stood, white faced and swaying – a limp noodle, drained and exhausted.

  Doctor D was smiling as Everett left the room. As he stumbled out the door into the hall, the blonde was right there, directly in his way.

  He collided full length with her and felt her breasts flatten against his chest. He smelt how Chanel No. 5 reacts with a woman’s scent. Their faces were inches apart, and she stared into his eyes with lips parted. Mortified despite his dizziness, Everett left the building without looking back. He felt her eyes on him the entire way out.

  Everett had to stop once on the walk home to vomit in the gutter. The sun still shone, the birds still sang, but not for him.

  He didn’t tell his parents. There are consequences beyond consequences after all.

  That night he had his first wet dream in which the blonde was an enthusiastic participant. When he awoke to change his shorts, Everett had to rinse his mouth to get the taste of blood out.

  His next appointment with Doctor D was a week later. There was dread, but curiosity as well. Everett wanted to see if he could control the pain as he’d started to before, see if the agony could be pushed further away from himself this time. He wanted to see the receptionist again, if only to sneak glances from a safe dista
nce.

  He reclined in the dental chair looking up at Doctor D's backlit face as that insectile drill descended to bite. Pain blossomed inside the tooth Doctor D picked for that day.

  It was, if anything, worse than before. Everett writhed in the chair, the whine of the drill stabbing into his ears as he reached deep into self for the place the pain called home. He found the crimson root of it, studying it as if it belonged to someone else and didn’t matter.

  The tortured nerves inside the tooth expanded to become Everett’s whole world. He visualized grasping them with the mind like a handful of jangling piano wires and – sent them away again. The pain was no more than a balloon bobbing on a string, distant and separate from him. He had controlled it.

  Doctor D’s breath came in hoarse gasps as he focused on his drilling. He became aware of Everett’s smug gaze and pulled the drill away. "So. The puppy believes he is stronger."

  He stuck the drill in Everett’s mouth and dug it deep into the root of the tooth's exposed nerve, pressing deft and hard. The pain came back to stab Everett like a bolt of storm lightning, and his body convulsed with the thunder of it.

  Doctor D withdrew his tool. "That is all the drilling for today."

  He filled the tooth and Everett left the room.

  The blonde was waiting to the side of this door this time, as if having learned from experience. She beckoned to him, then turned and walked away. Everett looked all around, and then followed her.

  She led the way down the hall and around the corner. She took his hand and pulled him into a broom closet. She dropped to her knees, fumbling hungrily at his pants and pulling them down to his ankles.

  Everett was mortified for a moment, every boy’s nightmare of being naked in public flashing before his eyes. Then her nails were digging into his buttocks and her mouth surrounded him to become his entire world. Sensation crashed on sensation as he stared at the mops and soaps and cleaning supplies until he finished with a loud cry.

  He leaned against the wall, pulling up his pants with a feeling of emptiness. She wiped her mouth and repaired her lipstick, and then adjusted her coif in her pocket mirror without looking at him. She left without a word, making him feel like he wasn’t even there. The closet was cold, so very cold.

  After a bit Everett peeked out into the empty hall and crept to the empty waiting room. He heard a woman’s moans behind the closed door to Doctor D’s work station, rhythmic and repetitive. He slunk out of the office.

  No vomiting on the walk home this time. Everett engaged in lustful wonderment regarding the receptionist. It had happened so suddenly, out of the blue. It was over so quickly. Had it even been real?

  Alternating with his confusion and horniness, Everett was enraged with himself. This was a trial of wills, and he had failed. Doctor D had gotten the better of it once again. However, it was the receptionist he dreamt of that night.

  The next visit Everett spent the entire session staring into Dr. D’s eyes as he dug and probed and twisted with the drill. Everett put the pain inside a well lit little house this time, with himself outside looking in.

  He could see the pain through the windows. Its lights throbbed and pulsed in the middle of that imaginary room like some obscene Christmas tree, but it couldn’t touch Everett where he stood out there alone in the dark.

  It was nothing at all.

  Doctor D gave up and put away the drill. He filled Everett’s tooth with a brusque minimum of motions. Standing to leave, Everett hazarded a smile at the dentist. Was this man’s approval being sought?

  Dr. D did not smile back. He clicked his heels and inclined his head in a miniscule bow, which made no sense to Everett.

  When Everett exited the room the receptionist stood at the end of the hall, waiting comfortably. She walked around the corner and Everett followed her to a room further down the hall from the broom closet.

  It was an examination room with table, overhead light and cabinets of medical equipment. She already had her top off and was down to her brassiere. Everett opened his mouth to speak and she put her finger to his lips in a ‘S-s-s-h’ gesture.

  She unhooked her bra. When her breasts spilled out Everett thought he would faint. She placed his hands on them, placed her hands atop his. He felt her nipples erect as she steered his caresses. Her Chanel No. 5 was overwhelming in its implications.

  She disengaged, gave his arm a sensuous stroke, and turned to step out of her skirt. Hurriedly, Everett shucked his tee shirt over his head. When he could see again she was pulling off her panties. He doffed his trousers so quick, he almost fell over.

  He was naked with a woman for the first time and he took a long, deep shuddering breath. When he remembered to exhale, it came out as a sigh.

  She gestured to the examination table. He scrambled to sit on its end. She gently pressed him onto his back. The paper rustled and crinkled beneath him as he squirmed his ass to lay down flat.

  She straddled him. He felt her smooth mound and almost finished right then. She guided him, taking him in and riding, riding. His head fell back and he thought ‘Now I am a man,’ and then thought nothing for a while.

  He figured he’d be done as quickly as the first time. However, whenever he got close she’d stop riding and clamp her hand around his base until the throbbing eased. It was a long time before she finally let him finish. Her moans were rhythmic, repetitive.

  Afterward she lay atop him, breasts smooshed against his chest. Their faces were almost touching, and her lips were parted. Shyly, he lifted his head to kiss her. She turned her head away so he had only her perfect ivory profile to consider. She uncoiled from him, their separation a ‘plop’ that dismayed him with a sense of loss.

  Her back was to him as she dressed. He knew she was alone in the room again, and ceased pretending to exist for her. She left that arctically frigid room first by unspoken demand. When he heard her cries behind the door on his way out, this time he did not approach to listen.

  His dreams that night were confused montages of her nakedness, alternating with the pain and blood he combated on every visit. Things were all mixed up. Torture led to reward. Pleasure led to pain.

  At one point he dreamt of making love to the receptionist, and Doctor Dauffenbach’s smiling face arose to supplant hers. Everett awoke with a choking gasp, to the thunder of the storm giants’ laughter.

  Their laughter faded as sleep fled, not to return that night. It was the first time he’d heard their voices since he encountered them as a child in Hayward.

  The day came for Everett’s next appointment. Walking up the steps to Dr. D’s office, he was met at the door by the receptionist, who was just locking up. Everett was both excited and frightened to see her without Doctor D around. There would be no more appointments, this cold blonde goddess said. Her husband Doctor Dauffenbach had died the night before.

  Even at the time Everett wondered about the age difference between old Dr. D and this much younger trophy wife of a receptionist, but other facts bubbled up to prevent dwelling upon it. Soon enough came the whispers of suicide, of how Doctor D was found in his den with a gun in his mouth and his brains painted on the wallpaper behind his shattered head. Then came the news that he’d taken the coward’s way out one step ahead of the Israelis, who were closing in on him to discuss certain of his activities during WW2.

  Dead Doctor D’s photo was on the front pages of all the Bay Area papers, and a top news story for every local TV station. There were reports of how Doctor D had been a Nazi. Of how bad a boy he’d been in the Camps, and of the sham life he built for himself in Amerika before the walls toppled in on him.

  Whenever he saw a photo of Doctor Dauffenbach, Everett’s tongue would probe one or another of the teeth he’d worked on. And years later as an adult, watching ‘Marathon Man’ on TV, Everett wondered what all the excitement was about when Laurence Olivier had his little fun with Dustin Hoffman – Hoffman’s character was a man after all, and Everett had beaten his dentist as a boy.

&n
bsp; Of course, at the time of that last canceled appointment of course Everett knew none of this. All that he knew was that Doctor D had lost the game, and Everett had outlasted him.

  Everett laughed in the receptionist's porcelain doll face. In memory he seemed to see a frank interest in her eyes that he rebuffed without knowing at the time, never realizing the narrowness of his escape. He never saw her again after that until she ambushed him at Bambi’s death bed. What would have happened if he hadn’t turned from her that day and run away?

  For he did run, down the office steps and along the sidewalk, skipping and capering like a much younger boy. People in passing cars yelled rude comments at his victory dance but he ignored the taunts, allowed feelings full vent and uncaring for once at the risk this exposure of self entailed.

  Doctor D had fallen. Everett was triumphant!

  His heart was a fortress now, seamless and unassailable. Nothing could hurt anymore, nor anyone touch. And in the years to come, Everett would have the old butcher's unintentional gift to rely upon: Pain and fear would forever be something that happened far, far away to someone else.

  Chapter 21 : The Orbit of his Infection

  After recounting the (expurgated) tale of Dr. Dauffenbach, Everett mapped the locations of his cached money stashes. Kerri should have paid rapt attention to his very important words. But his mouth had become no more than a moving hole expelling modulated pulses of air.

  Brother Rick and Everett commenced a meaningless exchange wherein they took turns jabbering nonsense at each other. Their words grew closer to understandable as the ice water drained from her head, and everything became as normal as it was likely to get.

  Death, she thought as he placed the sawed off shotgun in her hands. She stared down at the stubby little killer. Death surrounds us on all sides.

  Just the sound of this Widow’s voice at the door had made Kerri cringe in her bed. It was just as horrible to hear the predatory rapport between her and Everett, like two estranged relatives discussing an inheritance dispute.